Her mother is an alcoholic who graduates from berating her young daughter for not doing well in kids' pageants to declaring she will not provide any money or support for Mona if she keeps competing.

Mona becomes colder and meaner as she gets closer to achieving her goal, whether she's sabotaging fellow contestant Joyce Perkins on her routine and earning a lifelong enemy of an aspiring newscaster, or pawning all of her inconveniences onto Ruby while ignoring how obvious it is that Vanessa looks exactly like her – a path that leads to her victory in the Miss Illinois pageant.

When Ruby is falsely accused of euthanasia and jailed, Mona is forced to care for Vanessa, a task at which she is neither qualified nor appreciative, as she is afraid that her MAM crown bid will be taken away.

Joyce is left humiliated as her anti-Mona efforts, and chance to become a star TV personality, are both in ruins.

Mona and Vanessa end the film having re-united with a fully exonerated Ruby and heading off to happier times.

It’s about letting go of whatever garment you put on as a child in order to survive childhood, and taking that off and learning how to be a productive adult.

It's a movie with so many inconsistencies, improbabilities, unanswered questions and unfinished characters that we have to suspend not only disbelief but also intelligence.

"[7] In addition, Ebert felt that Minnie Driver was miscast as Mona because she "doesn't come across like the kind of person who could take beauty pageants seriously.